Johnny's POV

I woke up the morning after the party on top of my soft bed. I could hear birds chirping and it was bright through my eyelids so I must've left my window open. I tried to readjust my body, but it felt strange. My bed was much more comfortable than whatever I was sleeping on. My eyes opened and I realized where I actually was: laying on the bench that was outside the front door of my house.

I couldn't remember how I had gotten there, but last night I knocked back a few more drinks than I should have to keep myself from going over the edge with Shane around again. The last thing I remembered was saying "hi" to Hannah and stopping a girl from barfing in my mom's favorite flowers before the rest was a blur. I forced myself to try and remember anything, but my mind was coming up blank. Hopefully, nothing super bad happened.

I could tell by looking around that it must've been an awesome party because there was trash everywhere and someone had fallen asleep on one of our pool chairs. What was not awesome was that our house was now a gigantic mess.

I felt like passing out again and repositioned myself more comfortably on the bench. I was about to drift off into dreamland when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I wished it was someone telling me they were coming over to help clean up this mess.

Getting on the plane now. See you in a few hours. -Mom

Shit shit shit, I thought. I had just remembered that our parents were getting home from visiting their friends in Maui today. They thought it would be "okay" to leave us alone because Shane had gotten back from college a week ago but boy were they wrong. We were going to be in deep trouble if our parents found out we had thrown a party. Correction, our parents would have been pissed if they found out that Shane had thrown a party. However, knowing my parents they would also blame me because Shane was the "perfect son" and he could never do anything wrong entirely on his own.

I sprang up and went to assess the overall damage of the house. It was worse than I had imagined. Movies about teenage parties had not prepared me for this. There were cups, trash, bottles, cans, and unknown things everywhere. It was around our driveway, lawn, pool, and the beach. I didn't even want to know what the inside of our house looked like. I walked through the side gate that led to the pool and saw unknown substances had turned it a murky green color. I knew I would never swim in there again after what I saw. I didn't know how we would clean all of this up or where to start, but my brother was the master of getting away with parties. After all these years, he must've had some sort of system that worked.

Thinking of him made me even more pissed off and I stomped off to look for him. I wanted to kill him more than I had ever wanted to in the past. I told him not to throw a party the other day. Our parents were usually pretty chill about throwing parties as long as we asked and they didn't get out of hand, but what did Shane do anyway? Throw a huge party with everyone from school, who left our house a complete and total mess.

I felt so dramatic ranting on and on about Shane, but he kept giving me more reasons to hate him. He was my older brother, but the "perfect son" to my parents. The son who was popular, the star football player, had a girlfriend every week, brought home stellar grades, and — the one my parents never let me forget — a future doctor. No younger sibling could ever live up to that reputation and it didn't help that my parents were constantly using him as a measuring stick for success. I was not as popular, I never had many girls chasing after me, I didn't like football very much, I had above-average grades, and I had no idea what I wanted to be yet. It seemed like anything good I did was never good enough and everything I did was in Shane's shadow.

My parents saw the perfect Shane, but they didn't know the Shane that I knew. He partied every weekend and would be a hungover mess the next morning, which I had to deal with, he was a jerk to girls, and he was at least high or wasted more times than not with his friends and I had to cover for him in front of our parents. He was such an asshole to me that, frankly, I was relieved when he left for college. I no longer had to put up with him being in a bad mood all the time, see him break girls' hearts, or have to pick up the pieces and cover for him so he could fool our parents into thinking they had the perfect son. What I hadn't anticipated was that his shadow would still lurk in our house, haunting me with his perfect reputation, and I would remain a constant letdown of a son to my parents.

However, things had been getting a little better because I could drive and wasn't hanging out around our house all the time. I was with my friends and my parents were at work or with their friends. I figured that if I wasn't around as much, there wouldn't be anything to disapprove of. Shane hadn't come back home for the last two summers because he wanted to travel with his college friends so I had almost forgotten about him. That was until I heard my parents so happy one night after they had found out he was going to come back for the entire summer.

I walked through the side door, which was wide open and connected the pool area to our house, and saw Shane passed out on the living room couch. I wanted to punch him but stopped myself because it would leave a mark and I wouldn't want to leave a mark on his "perfect" face where our parents would notice it.

I tried to shake him awake, but it didn't work. I started to kick him awake, but that didn't work either so finally, I pushed his heavy body off the couch and that definitely woke him up.

"What the hell?" he asked, very pissed off.

We didn't have time for him to be angry at me because we were on a huge time crunch and inside was as much of a disaster as the outside. Our parents would be home in two hours and the house had to be spotless by the time they walked through the door.

I shoved my phone into his face.

At first, he looked at me annoyed then he read the message. When he finished reading, his eyes widened and he yelled, "Fuck."

"So, do you have a plan to clean all of this up in two hours?" I asked. "Right now, it looks like we're completely screwed."

"Of course, I do," he said, making me feel like such an idiot for having no idea how to solve this mess. "You have so much to learn little brother."

He stood up and patted my shoulder. I mentally shuttered.

He scanned the damage while remarking, "That was one hell of a party. You really got some action, huh. I was very impressed. You've improved your game since the last time I saw you."

What was he talking about? We also didn't have the time to sit around and chat about the damn party.

"What?" I questioned as he walked into the kitchen.

"Let's get to work and I'll fill you in after," he called. I ran outside and started working.

I worked harder than I had ever before. Studying for finals, training for soccer, and surfing seemed like nothing compared to how hard I worked. I raced around the house cleaning everything in sight and surprisingly so was Shane, neither of us was messing around. We were completely serious for once in our lives because we knew our mom and she could make our lives and summers a living hell.

I took most of the outside cleaning and started by waking up the person by our pool. Turns out it was this guy who was in my chemistry class last year. Then I fished out whatever gross things laid at the bottom of our pool and threw them into the trash bin that was ready to explode. The pool was still green so I went to our garage and poured whatever pool cleaner we had into it. I got a garbage bag and began to throw everything in sight away. I didn't care what it was, anything party related just got thrown into the bag. I filled three bags up by cleaning around our front lawn alone. I swept up all the stuff by the pool, in the driveway, and on our porch, while I saw Shane cleaning up the beach.

I went inside our house to find it clean, but not too clean so our parents wouldn't suspect anything because Shane and I weren't exactly neat freaks. He must've had this down. He even sprayed air freshener and put all the trash bags by the side of the road for the garbage truck. It was scary how my brother was able to think ahead for once.

The garbage truck was leaving right as I saw our parents' silver Toyota pulled into our driveway. Where the hell was Shane? I watched him speed walk through the door and we both flopped on the couch with a bag of chips like we normally would have on a Saturday afternoon.

I hadn't realized how tired I was until I sat down and I could tell Shane was too. His was breathing so hard. He put out his fist and I bumped it lightly. The whole clean up deal was impressive, and for once, Shane stopped being a complete jerk and got his act together. Maybe he was finally maturing, although probably not. He turned on the television as we heard our parents put the key through the lock.

"Shane, give me some of the chips," I hissed.

"Boys, fighting already?" my mom asked looking around. Even she seemed impressed.

"Honey, it's about time. It's been years since they last lived together. They have to get it all out of their system," my dad said rolling their suitcases into the entryway.

"How were the past couple of days? Everything go alright?" she asked sorting through the mail we put on the kitchen table.

"Yeah. So so," Shane replied in his usual bored voice. Shane raised his eyebrows at me in a told you so look. I rolled mine in response. I didn't miss how cocky he was either.

"What the hell was that?" my dad asked.

"What?" we both asked, suddenly very alert.

"Language," my mom scolded.

"You didn't see it, but they both exchanged looks!" my dad said hysterically. My mom looked puzzled, not getting his hint.

"Something happened. I know how teenage boys think, Lori. I had three brothers and I'll get to the bottom of this!" he said, beginning to examine the house for any evidence. If my brother really was the expert, he wouldn't find anything. My mom just rolled her eyes at him.

Once we heard them both go upstairs, I asked, "How do you do that?"

"Years of practice," he stated, looking very proud of himself. It was sad, but also impressive.

"What if they find out? Dad's going crazy."

"He won't."

"Okay, so what happened at the party last night? I don't remember anything."

"That sucks for you man. It was a pretty awesome party. Hm, should I mention the thing that happened with you?"

"Don't be a dick," I said seriously.

"Calm down," he said while shoving his phone in my face. It was a picture of me intensely making out with a girl.

I didn't have a girlfriend so that was nothing to worry about. I couldn't make her face out because the photo was still loading, but it was someone blonde. My heart began to speed up because if it was Hannah, I'd be in some serious trouble.

"I give you props, she was hot," Shane remarked. "You guys were really going at it. Someone even spilled their drink on her, but you guys kept going!"

The picture finally cleared up and I was relieved. It wasn't Hannah. Then I realized who it was and it was even worse.

~

Hannah's POV

I was screaming so loud that my entire neighborhood and everyone on the beach could have probably heard me. I was so mad that I wanted to chuck my phone over the side of the porch. I knew I was being a little dramatic, but I couldn't believe Johnny.

~

Earlier that day.

I didn't have training because they decided to give me the weekends off and my friends were probably not in the best states of mind that morning. If I had been drunk, I wouldn't have been able to experience how awesome the party really was. I danced so long that my feet ached and I was out of breath.

I hadn't realized the time and got home at midnight, but I heard juicy stuff happened around 1 a.m. and was sad that I had missed it. When I got home, I had to climb through my window and I forgot the dummy was in my bed so it scared me half to death. Once I got my pajamas on, my whole body was so tired that I fell asleep as soon as I shut my eyelids.

Even though I didn't have training and my feet still hurt, I needed to surf. Last night I was just messing around and not focusing on my technique. Outside my window, the waves would have looked pretty nice to the ordinary eye. However, to a surfer, the waves weren't preferable. They were maybe good for a beginner, but not enough to get a good ride. I missed ANS at that moment and was thinking about going over by Bethany's house where the waves might have been as an alternative.

It was already pretty sunny out and looked like it was almost noon. I changed into a bikini and walked into our front room. Blake and Spencer were heading out the door to surf and my dog was sleeping on our couch. My parents were out probably doing their usual Saturday morning exercises like biking or hiking. They made me hike with them once, but I didn't like it because it was pouring out and muddy. So every time they offered after that, even when it was a nice day, I declined.

I went to the fridge and grabbed some yogurt and a banana. I went out onto our porch and sat at the table, enjoying the nice day. It was quite sunny, but there was a nice breeze.

I heard someone come up behind me.

"Do you ever knock?" I asked turning around to face him while squinting from the sun.

"When do we ever?" Ryan asked, sitting on the opposite bench.

I didn't think Ryan was right. I always remembered knocking when I went to his, Alana's, Bethany's, Brody's, and Johnny's houses. When I thought about it, maybe not, but I didn't want to prove his point. I started to peel my banana to divert the attention and he kept giving me this weird look. I hated when people stared at me and didn't say anything, it was uncomfortable.

I took a bite of my banana and shifted a little until I finally said, "Stop looking at me!"

The words probably came out weird because I had pieces of banana in my mouth. He just laughed. I was so confused then I realized what he was laughing about as I attempted to take another bite.

"You're so immature! Can I just eat my banana in peace?" I whined while shoving him as he laughed.

The shoving and laughing continued until he got a message on his phone. His face turned into shock as he looked at whatever was on his phone. He tried to cover his reaction, hoping I hadn't noticed. I tried to look over at his phone, but he moved it away and put it in his pocket.

"What was it?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said, shrugging me off. Then I heard my phone vibrate next to me and saw Ryan trying to grab it. I got it first and was about to unlock it when Ryan warned, "I wouldn't look at that if I were you."

"Why not?"

"You're not going to like it," he said almost fearfully.

Too bad, I thought as I opened my phone and clicked on a new message from a random guy at school I met last night. I didn't realize who was in the picture until it cleared up and it was Johnny kissing — holy shit.

My mouth immediately dropped and my phone would've fallen onto the porch if Ryan didn't have fast reflexes to catch it. I started screaming when my eyes, brain, and mouth connected what was happening. It was Miranda freaking Weston. One of my best friends was making out with Miranda Weston and I wanted to vomit.